Spurred by forecasts of the "hottest ever summer" this season, air-conditioner manufacturers in India are hoping for a windfall this time around. Aiding them in this endeavour are a spate of new technologies, ranging from air-conditioners with Wi-Fi and voice control capabilities to even one which claims to remove the polluting PM 2.5 from the air.
The top brands are reportedly already seeing earnest interest among consumers, though peak summer is yet to hit in many parts of the country. The optimism is especially heartening as it comes on the heels of dismal sales over the past two summers, due to the double whammy of demonetisation in 2017, closely followed by the impact of being bracketed in the highest GST slab of 28 per cent last year.
However, the troublesome projections of a summer that could be 'the hottest in recorded history', to be followed by a below-normal monsoon augurs well, at least for the AC manufacturers. The market for air-conditioners in India is only around 55 lakh, compared to eight crore in China and 14 crore globally. If the under-penetration wasn't enough, the growth rate has been sluggish, at just about 4 per cent.
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Brands, hoping all that will change this year, are going out with a spate of new launches. Bluestar came out with no less than 75 new air conditioner models last week. Inverter air-conditioners—models whose compressors work variably based on cooling requirement—seem to have become an industry standard of sorts. While Voltas announced India's first 'adjustible' inverter AC range, Sanyo announced duo-cool ACs, and Samsung launched a series of air-conditioners with triple inverter technology. LG has also launched inverter air-conditioners in the window format.
“Our growth rate has been higher than the industry average,” Bluestar managing director B. Thiagarajan said, adding that the company is aiming for 12 per cent growth this year. The models the company has launched boast of a whole lot of smart new features, from AC which boasts of Wi-Fi and voice control via Alexa, models that do not require stabilisers to even those that claim to remove 99.9% of the polluting 2.5 particulate matter. In its portfolio are also models that can be controlled using a smartphone app, which allows the user to set an electricity bill budget and manage usage.
“India has a huge potential. I predict the (air-conditioner) industry growing at 14-15 per cent this year,” Daikin CEO and MD Kanwaljeet Jawa told PTI recently. Besides the hot weather, AC manufacturers are also hoping that the increased electrification (Union government had recently claimed that 100 per cent electrification has been achieved in India) and rising disposable income in rural areas will help push the growth of sales.
